In recent years conservatives were very upset when the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing certain acts between consenting adults, and they support the armed forces searching for and ousting patriotic Americans from the military based on their sexual orientation.

> In recent years conservatives were very upset when the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing certain acts between consenting adults...

There are two ways to object to a Supreme Court decision. One way is to object because you don't like the outcome of a decision. Another way is to object because you don't like who's making the decision.

Speaking only for this conservative, my primary objection was who made the decision. I don't think the Constitution protects the gay lifestyle, so that leaves, or should leave, Texas free to pass all the stupid laws they want. I'm less afraid of Texas than I am a Supreme Court that usurps state authority.

> Do you think the Constitution really allows any state to deprive anyone of basic human liberties?

> (Silly me - of course you do. You just said so.)

It depends on what "basic human liberties" we're talking about.

The phrase "basic human liberties" is pretty open-ended. What you see as a basic human liberty may not be what I see as one, and vice versa.

The Constitution does not ensure unspecified "basic human liberties." It ensures Constitutional rights.

Something may indeed be a human right and not be mentioned in the Constitution. I'm not arguing that it isn't so.

I'm only arguing that if an alleged right is not guaranteed by the Constitution, the Supreme Court has no business inventing it and enforcing it as a right.

If you think something is a right that needs to be ensured by the Constitution, get a bunch of people to agree with you, sign a petition, get Congress to pass it, and get 3/4ths of the states to ratify it.

This leaves the states free to pass the laws they choose to pass which do not conflict with the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution -- a right which is specified in the Tenth Amendment.

Ok, lets see if I'm following this - according to Lee, US citizens have no rights except those granted by the government. The all-powerful, all-encompassing government is the keeper of any and all privilege, and extends these only by explicit assertion.

I should add that it precisely because I don't believe government is all-powerful that I do believe in constitutional government.

Note that the checks and balances in the Constitution are addressed toward the federal government, not people.

The Supreme Court interprets the Constitution. It is not empowered by the Constitution to invent new rights. It is not a "human rights" laboratory.

You might appreciate that fact a little more if there had been more conservative judicial activism in the past fifty years or so. But we have associated judicial activism with liberalism since the Warren Court, and liberals support such activism because they like the results of the decisions.

Sometimes the process is important, not just the results. Sometimes the issue is not what decision is made, but who makes the decision, that is important.

But for just one minute, think about what it would be like if the shoe were on the other foot. Think how life would be if the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary, instead of looking for emanations of penumbras within the Constitution to find "rights" that aren't in it, were looking instead for reasons to, say, impose restrictions on "the bedroom" that aren't in the Constitution. Maybe they not only wouldn't prohibit the states from passing restrictive laws; maybe they would *require* the states to do pass such laws.

My guess is, all of a sudden, you would find strict constructionists pop up in a lot of places where they don't exist now. My guess is the ACLU would suddenly discover the 10th Amendment. My guess is even Alan Dershowitz would discover the concept of judicial restraint. My guess is liberals would discover the wisdom of having a balance of power.